Wanderings of a 20-something optimist determined to look on the bright side.

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On feeling the love and living the dream

Truth be told, I love Valentine’s Day. But this year (and every other year), I was appalled at the extent of bitterness the average person I know feels toward this innocent Hallmark holiday. In fact, I’ve seen quite a bit of hater-ade on the topic of love in general over the past month. So much so that I’ve been tempted to shout “LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL, YOU GUYS!” from the rooftops on more than one occasion. Love is quite literally all around us in one form or another. It doesn’t matter if you’re single, heartbroken, married, building your empire, too busy eating cheese fries to date anyone or otherwise, get over yourself and appreciate the love that is around you. (Disclaimer: I’m allowed to say this because I’m as single as single gets and proud of it.)

This past Valentine’s weekend, I spent time with different friends all from different aspects of my life, all whom I’ve known for varying lengths of time and in varying ways. I had an amazing time with all of them and made memories I’ll remember forever. I received Valentine’s mail from my wonderful family and I teared up at Kroger when I witnessed an elderly man picking out flowers for his gal. Let’s just say I was feeling the love this year. You can, too. The mushy stuff doesn’t have to come from a significant other. Take a good look around and appreciate all the people that care about you. Hallmark’s right, that’s something to celebrate, people.

In the same vein as love, it’s easy to be bitter that you’re not “living the dream” when it seems like everyone you know has it all together. Well first of all, nobody has it together. And second of all, let’s redefine “living the dream”…

The other day I was pondering the quintessence of life while trying for the umpteenth time to successfully make an omelet when it hit me. I am a fully functional grown-ass woman (sorry, mom) with a job who mostly pays bills on time, usually gets enough sleep and generally succeeds at other adult tasks such as laundry, ironing, grocery shopping and not burning the house down. I AM LIVING THE DREAM.

But seriously, you don’t have to be CEO of a well-known company, the founder of a wickedly successful start-up, the wife of last year’s World Series MVP or any other possibly unattainable, probably over-rated, superbly ambitious thing in order to be living the dream.

We live in a world where we watch everyone we know have their biggest moments on social media. We drown in a sea of Facebook posts about what cool thing everyone else is doing next. We see our friends and loved ones attain life milestones through Instagram filters and 10-second snaps.

In 2016, it’s easy to feel like our little moments pale in comparison to everyone’s big moments. Stop it. We can choose to go through life feeling the love and living the dream. I know I am.